Giant deformations of a liquid-liquid interface induced by the optical radiation pressure

Because of the small momentum of photons, very intense fields are generally required to bend a liquid interface with the optical radiation pressure. We explore this issue in a near-critical phase-separated liquid mixture to vary continuously the meniscus softness by tuning the temperature. Low power continuous laser waves become sufficient to induce huge stationary bulges. Using the beam size to build an optical Bond number, B-o, we investigate the crossover from low to large B-o. The whole set of data collapses onto a single master curve which illustrates the universality of the phenomenon.